Not much background to this trip. It was time for the family minus my brother to go on a vacation. We booked it in June for travel the second week in September. Routing was PHL-MKE on the 8th, MKE-ORD-SEA on the 10th, and then SEA-PHL on the 15th. First and last flights on US Airways and the middle portion were on United. I have a good amount of pictures and a lot to write about so please sit back and enjoy.

Wake up call at 9:30 AM, not my favorite time to wake up, but on a travel day it is worth it. Drove over to the airport at 11 and grabbed lunch in F terminal. Compared to the rest of the airport minus the new A West; F Terminal is amazing. It's very clean and easy to get around. I know this is far fetched but PHL should really consider redoing B,C,D,E Terminals. I'll keep dreaming.
The flight boarded on time, 36/50 seats were filled, nice load. We had to sit in the plane for about 15 minutes for what the captain said was to wait for more bags which were on their way. No problem. I mistakenly booked the exit row seat thinking there would be more legroom, but on CRJ it's a regular seat with regular legroom. Don't ever book that seat, its get so cold by the exit. I have been on many flights in the exit row and have never experienced the freezing temperatures I did for that flight. I ask the flight attendant to turn up the heat, she told the captain and with about 20 minutes left, my body had returned to its normal temperature. Also no US Express flights carry blankets which seems kind of stupid, but it saves money I assume. Alright enough of the rant. The flight was enjoyable, beverage service with the whole can was conducted along with the little bag of pretzels.

Flight next to us after push back

170 waiting for take off next to us at PHL

Beginning our take off roll

Lift off!

Shortly after take off

In flight

This is an airport we passed on the way to MKE, any one recognize it? ORD? somewhere in Michigan?

The following pictures are of landing

Milwaukee was great, it's a wonderful city, we were only there for about 36 hours, but it still was worth it. Miller park is one of the nicest baseball stadiums I have ever been too! Our flight was even earlier on Sunday so wake up was at 6:30 AM

The flight was delayed coming in due to weather in ORD. The pictures below did not come out very well because of the rain on the windows, I apologize but I still think their worth putting up! There is not much to say about a 20 minute flight. There was a flight attendant but only for the safety briefing she sat down for the rest of the flight. Cruised at 6,000 ft which would have been awesome to watch if there were no clouds.

This part will not be as good as RoseFlyer trip reports on their flights from Chicago to Seattle and back but I’ll see what I can do.

Taxing out to the runway

My Failed attempt at getting a picture of a KLM asia 747 landing

Rolling

Chicago has a great airport, it is prone to delays but it is very easy to navigate and there are large windows everywhere with an unobstructed view of the ramp most of the time. We arrived and proceeded to walk around concourse C to see all of the action. Then we stopped off around gate 15 area and got some lunch. By the time we were down we went over to the gate and got on the plane. The plane was completely full, no chance for econ. Plus this time.
Channel 9 was being offered so as we taxied out I was tuned in to listen to what was going on. KLM landing, multiple planes taking off, and taxing directions were what was primarily what was going on.
Take-out was smooth even though there were some heavy storm clouds, we reached our cruising altitude of 36,000 feet. I like how United offers free headphones on all of their flights, it’s a nice touch. I committed an a.net sin by watching the movie, instead of listening to channel 9! The movie, Poseidon is horrible but it made the time go.

As we got closer to Seattle I tuned back in to channel 9 to listen to our approach and landing. We had a nice view of the airport as we were flying parallel with it. Landing was smooth, made a quick taxi to the gate on the north satellite. We get on the tram to get to the main terminal building and it brakes as we are on it. An engineer comes and fixes it in about 15 minutes. O well, luggage takes about 20 minutes, get the rental car and head to the hotel.

Some random in flight shots and approach to Seattle followed by landing

Another failed attempt at getting a United 777 as we roll by during landing

Overall the flight was great, after flying United for this trip and a fun trip I took on august, I find their service to be much better, their seats are more comfortable, and I love channel 9.

This flight did not go as planned at all. First in August we received a call saying the flight has been changed, we originally were scheduled on flt. 72 which is an A321 and leaves 10 minutes later, so we were downgraded to an A320 and the time change was no big deal. We also were given the wrong confirmation number so I was never able to check out the flight details or our seat assignments. They gave us a America West confirmation number, I finally got a different one a week before the flight. When we go to check in 24 hours before our flight, we find out seats had been changed due to the plane change and we were scattered throughout the plane all in middle seats. The plane is of course completely full so there is nothing I can do when we do the online check in. What ever, the next day we get to check in counter for our luggage and ask him and he says talk to the agent at the gate, fine. We get to the gate and she says the plane is full but she will see what she can do. To make a long story short she got 2 seats together so my parents sat together in the last row, and I stayed in the exit row. Which means no more pictures, sorry. At least the gate agent tried.
We all get on the plane and the captain comes on and says as you have heard we could have a 2 hour delay so sit tight and we will keep you informed. WHAT!! That’s the first anyone has heard anything. We push back from the gate not to late, I guess to try and keep the departure time close to on time. The safety video is shown; we taxi out to the end of the runway and sit on the ramp away from taxing aircraft. Captain says we will wait here until Philadelphia allows us to leave, storms are rolling in there. We sit for about 20 minutes captain comes back and says looks like we can go so we are departing now get ready. OK, that’s what I like to hear, we taxi out and take off. I bought the chicken Caesar sandwich which was delicious. I provided the flightaware.com map (http://flightaware.com/live/flight/USA786/history/20060915/1848Z/KSEA/KPHL) but it’s hard to see we made a circle twice once about 100 miles out from PHL and then again 30 miles out. Captain said we were put into a holding pattern, flight time ended up being 5 hours and 22 minutes on a flight that should have been about 4 hours and 45 minutes, o well the fun of flying!

Seattle was a great city as well, I highly recommend the underground tour and to drive up to Boeing to see their tour. I also made a trip to the museum of flight, those pictures are below. Sorry for any errors, i was rushing to get this up, I hope you enjoyed the report, Looks like I won’t be flying until March so until then I’ll be reading others and perfecting for the next one.

I went to Seattle a few years ago and enjoyed the Museum of Flight very much. I want to go back and see the inside of the 707 Air Force One. How cool! When I visited in 1996, I watched an Emirates 777-200 do touch and go's. It was great! I visited the Concorde at the Intrepid (in Aug) and found it to be very nice inside. Unfortunately, it was raining that day so I couldn't get such a good shot of the cabin.